Outplacement is support provided by an outplacement service company, supporting individuals who have been made redundant from their business, whether it is voluntarily or involuntarily. Outplacement support helps employees transition to new jobs with the support of experienced career coaches.
Today’s business environment is ridden with often sudden changes: mergers, acquisitions, relocations, consolidations, downsizing, and constantly-changing market pressures.
Unfortunately, at some point every company faces the very unpleasant activity of terminating an employee or group of employees. This is never easy and it typically doesn’t get any easier with practice, and outplacement support does help ease that pain. But, what is outplacement support & what is outplacement in general?
Being out of work is very complicated and outplacement support helps handle that issue to get into another role. Without it, a person’s social and economic status is in upheaval. Emotions the person feels are: embarrassment and lack of confidence. Their financial position is in jeopardy. They face huge competition in the job market, and a concerned or perhaps angry family, especially if the family’s lifestyle has been impacted. These are just a few dynamics that impact the person who has lost their job.
Outplacement can enormously ease the pressure. Outplacement services are career coaching services that employers pay for to assist ex-employees in finding a new job. Outplacement is rapidly becoming a common component of a severance agreement when staff are laid off. Career coaches & outplacement support individuals seeking a new job, and also those who are perhaps looking to start a new business, retire, or structure a portfolio of activities. Outplacement programmes have time limits usually, ranging from a few sessions to more extended periods, such as 3/6/12 months and are offered at all levels of the organization, from junior staff to corporate employees.
Outplacement companies typically offer help with CVs, cover letters, interview preparation and other aspects of the hunt. Some provide workshops and seminars, while others offer one-on-one sessions with coaches to discuss career goals and job search techniques.
By providing Outplacement, the affected employee has job search coaching by professional career transition consultants. This coaching often helps the employee move into a new job much quicker and smoother than if left to their own to find new job opportunities.
Redundancy situations are stressful for both the employee and employer. Outplacement support provides the emotional and practical specialist career coaching support that will help an employee or ex-employee navigate the job market and move into a new job as soon as possible.
Outplacement Support also helps to maintain the reputation of the company. Did you know that when an employee is let go the whole world is watching and perhaps reading about it? Don’t kid yourself about this, if there are negative stories to tell about the company, the word spreads! Your current workforce knows that it happened and even how it happened. Bitter outcries these days can spread quickly and hurt the brand. Angry workers can take to Facebook, Twitter and other online social media networks and forums and lash out. Newspapers quickly pick up on this and add to the social media reaction. We have seen it all before.
If workers then pursue legal action and keep up the pressure online, the issue can remain in the public eye for a very long time and damage the morale of those who were directly affected by redundancy.
To sum up, Outplacement Support can be beneficial for all parties financially, professionally and emotionally and, more often than not, ensure a peaceful end to a working relationship. Get in touch today so that we can discuss your specific requirements.
